They have led to a proliferation of fake news and clickbait, fuelled surveillance capitalism and normalised pervasive tracking and data-mining. Then there’s their effect on democracy …We have been arguing about political advertising on social media ad nauseam recently. Should it be regulated? Is Twitter right to ban political ads from its platform? Is Facebook wrong to refuse to factcheck political messaging? Is it possible to have free and fair elections when social media allows for the mass dissemination of misleading information and the micro-targeting of propaganda?Such discussions are obviously necessary. But we should not miss the wood for the trees. It isn’t just highly targeted political advertising that is threatening our democracy, it’s highly targeted advertising full stop. As David Heinemeier Hansson, the founder of programming language Ruby on Rails, recently tweeted: “The debate over targeted political advertisement [sic] keeps dancing tantalisingly close to the eventual conclusion: NO ADVERTISEMENT SHOULD BE TARGETED ON PERSONAL INFORMATION!” Continue reading…
Via: Targeted ads are one of the world's most destructive trends. Here's why | Arwa Mahdawi
Categories: English News